


Botticelli & Caravaggio

by graham_png



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal - Fandom, NBC Hannibal
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Art, College AU, Dark Will Graham, Erotica, Florence Art, Gore, Hannibal - Freeform, Hannibal is Hannibal, Hannibal is a Cannibal, Hannibal is a successful curator/author/art historian, Hannigraham - Freeform, Hannigram - Freeform, Historical art, M/M, Murder, Sexual Content, Smut, Student AU, University AU, Will Graham is a student studying art, Will is corrupted by Hannibal as usual, alias - Freeform, erotic art, graphic content, nbc hannibal - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-09-24 15:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graham_png/pseuds/graham_png
Summary: Will Graham studies early renaissance and gothic art at the Florence School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy. He meets Hannibal Lecter, an esteemed author who is visiting the university to give a lecture on Caravaggio under the alias of Roman Fell who, likewise, carried the same profession. The acquaintance begins as a friendly professional curiosity. A mindless invitation into the genius of Hannibal Lecter holds labyrinths of hunger and brutality, and Will falls into the depths where there are no walls to claw himself out from.[ summary is to be updated as needed ]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Han here.  
> This work is to be updated whenever I have the time. I am an artist so, as you can assume, my time is occupied with art. As well as being a painter, I am currently working up to having a degree in the same area as our dear Will Graham in this work. Botticelli & Caravaggio is for fun and education, I suppose. Keep in mind that I am not native to Italy so I don’t know a lick of Italian. French, yes, but Google Translate will be doing the brunt of the work for Italian, so don’t mind the inevitable errors. As always, kudos and comments are always welcomed! I would love to hear what you all think of this work and suggestions for future chapters!

 

 

"Thus you may understand that love alone

is the true seed of every merit in you, and of

all the acts for which you must atone."

\- Dante Alighieri

 

* * *

 

  She felt like what he imagined Venus might have.

  The soft swell of her breast was mallable in his hand and warm beneath his palm. Her skin was resemblant to velvet in its softness and texture, tear-drop in its shape. Her belly was plump; her shallow breaths conveying a sense of enjoyment as he cupped his hands around her middle and pressed against her abdomen lightly enough to create a sensation of delightful pleasure, enough to feel the weight she wrongly detested, and enough to hear his name fall from her wet tongue on to his encouraging lips.

  She pressed her knee and spoke his name again. Quietly, under her breath, swallowed in the beginnings of pleasure. She grasped his wrists and pulled to where she wished for him to go and he obeyed her shy charge. He leaned to kiss between her breasts that spread as she lay upon the mattress, arching cat-like in her beg, his teeth nipping at the hard bud of her nipple.

  The room trapped all traces of heat and seemed to cling between them in a sticky sheet. Agitating, overwhelming, suffocating as he sucked and sucked until his hair was pulled. Her neck was red, spotted in his claim that would mean nothing when they were through and departed within the hour. She was tense around him but pursuitful in her dubious thrust. He saw her confidence grow after one, two, then three, and finally blossom when she enveloped him in a heat so sweet that she mumbled “ _Will,_ _Will,_ _Will_ ” and he moaned the name that was clinging to his mind and imprinted behind eyelids squeezed shut; not hers, not a lovers; not one she corrected.

  They were strangers and yet he was sure he would not easily forget how tightly her thighs clung about him and squeezed his hips with a pressure that rendered him immobile. Her sounds, delicate and innocently deprived, milked what attraction he held.

  Venus, he called her. Aphrodite to the Greeks, Venus to the Romans, Sofia to the rest of the world. The world was not here, though, but what remained outside the door of the cheap and handsomely unorganized apartment. She let him call her the goddess of beauty — murmur it against her ear, between her legs, in her hair that smelled of cherry. Nothing in the world could have stopped him.

  An oddity, that they were gazing at the _Birth_ _of_ _Venus_ an hour before.

 

* * *

 

  "'In the venerable evangelists, who's partriarchal figures look down from the vaulted roof; in the light and graceful steps of the dancing Salome, in her swaying form and fluttering draperies; in the yearning faces of the sorrowful disciples who stand around the beir of the first martyr, we already see the germ of Botticelli's art.'"

  The text sounded alight with incomparable intelligence. The study of art is a misunderstood challenge, in the eye of who sees and the ears who hear the words of the one who sees the conception of a singular idea taken wing in the form of paint. Art itself is incomparable to any other piece of art; each piece unique in its birth in the mind and then brush, in the imagination and talent of the one who created the canvas and the paints, the idea and the work.

  A passion for art is a strive never quenched, no matter the number of museums and collections one has the honor to enter within, or the paintings never to be touched but to be revered with a studious gaze. Such passion is not inhereited, but created. The passion stems from any form, but the remembrance is clear and intact, vivid and alive and pushing the individual to revere the greatest of artists and the beginnings of new geniuses. It is simple to grasp and easier to understand. An anchor to the mind for it was the thought of another and not one's own. It evokes sensations once foreign and forgotten, and procures an undying interest unforeseen in anything but the desire to please the unpleasable. People understand art, if people quiet their minds enough to hear it speaking.

  "'The wayside shrine which contained this damaged fresco was originally raised in honour of Our Lady, who kind influences of the Tuscan peasants invoked to shield the vineyards and orchards on the hill of Settignano from hail and tempest.'"

  A curse interrupted the readings, for the smallest drop of wine soaked through the cream-tinted page and dampened the next. A blue towelette gently dabbed at his mistake. Then, with long and dark hair dropping to shade his eyes, he wrote the name of the painting next mentioned - _Fortezza_ \- and began to continue his reading aloud.

  "'The plump and rosy child standing on his mother's knee recalls Fra Filippo's children,'" he stopped to write, "'but the droop of the Virgin's head and the gentle melancholy of her expression are already characteristic of Botticelli.'"

  A breeze swept past and began to carry the paper with it, but his quick hand pressed to the grass beneath and kept it grounded. Then he thought he ought to write his name if his work was ever to be lost, whether by the wind or his own disregard. Momentarily after the thought, a paper became caught by the stem of his partially full glass of wine. His script did not cover the page, for it was entirely too neat to be his own. The name at the top of the page read "Roman Fell, curator." It was a foreign name to him, but not the position defined thereafter. A curator, but the curator of where? A curator who had the unfortunate luck that he had managed to previously avoid.

   "My apologies," a voice said from behind. "The weather caught me unprepared."

   His neck craned to see the man approaching, evidently named Roman Fell, with hair swept by wind and a suit no longer caught by a breeze of the dying and unpredictable changes of the weather. It was still hot with a beating sun and the wind was a blessing, and he wished it would come again when he had his papers weighted or stored. "Its no problem." His reply was flat and monotone, distracted by the work before him; not the load that he was given, but of its contents.

   The curator smiled. The corners of his aged eyes wrinkled and the lines around his mouth became further prominent. It was not a smile that showed teeth or true friendliness, but one that was required to seem friendly. It was returned. Then, after the curator was returned of his paper, his head bowed and his youthful fingers searched for the pack of cirgarettes forgotten an hour ago, now tickling his tongue in a slight want of the agitating taste. No, not for the taste, but to make the stranger leave; and when he, Hannibal Lecter, did not leave, the younger of the company pushed back his hair and lit a match to light the cigarette pursed between his lips. He spoke around it with the question: "Want one?"

   "No," he replied, "but thank you."

   The exact date such a habit occured was lost in the midst of many more important thoughts. He could not remember why smoking became an action he partook in, but knew he felt no real pull to the pack of what was now commonly called _cancer_ _sticks_. He smoked when he was truly bored, agitated, or looking to be alone. The smell alone made others replused, and he would rather be repulsive than attractive. The breath of smoke did not seem to bother the stranger's nose.

   A moment of silence was allowed to pass before his curiosity seemed to grab hold. The curator peered down below at the paper scrawled across with incoherent thoughts and notes all unorganized to an eye that was not the student's own, an open book that appeared familair to him, a chilled, possibly warm, bottle of wine and a glass to join it, a thatch bag, cigarette butts, and a blue towellete. However, among all of the possessions scattered within the perimeter the student sat, the book was most interesting. "Alessandro dei Filipepi." The curator's brow rose. "Botticelli. Marvelous painter... Marvelous book."

  "Have you read it?"

  The stranger offered a smile. It did not convey a sense of hoping to be friendly, but of an amusement which cause was only known to him. His mouth opened with a lopsided smile, showing glinting teeth. "Yes," said he. "I do not mean to boast, but the author is rather superb." Roman did mean to boast, and Will felt regrettfully stupid. "I wrote it," the stranger confirmed.

  He turned the book over and looked at the binding. In pressed gold, in its old script, was inscribed 'Roman Fell' and the name of the publisher beneath. His heart seemed to swell, shoulders tensed and his fingers twitching around the name embroidered in shining gold. The book itself was published in 1990 and Will had only discovered it when the assignment was given three classes ago, and for this he did not scramble to meet the deadline. He inhabited thorough enjoyment in reading the text, to scan another's words that were put so effortlessly beautifully in a fashion that somehow managed to make sense, but still seemed too complicated to fully comprehend. Was it a critique, or a praise of pure brilliance?

  "I commend you, then. This is the only book that has been assigned that I enjoyed."

  "You prefer pictures, then?"

 "No," he replied, then shook his head to break the confine that told him he was only saying stupid things. "Anything assigned seems a thousand times duller. It's like, any other time, they're making me read _Tom_ _Sawyer_ in fifth grade again. Its all simple words with no real meaning. A bunch of facts spit out at me, like a textbook."

  Roman Fell tucked the given paper underneath his arm. He wore a pinstrip suit that fit him well, unlike the baggy fashion that was on the rise. He paired it with a white shirt and a blood-red tie - classy, like something out of a men's fashion magazine, which only seemed fitting for a curator and author. He said nothing but gazed analyzingly as if his young company was a specimen underneath a microscope.

 "It's good. It's great. I... I would kill to be able to word things like you."

 Roman smiled. "What is your name?"

 "Will," was the reply. "William Graham."

 “Well, Will, isn’t it odd that moments ago you wished to disgust me away with that cigarette, and now you praise me for my writing?”

  The overbearing sun glinted on the curator’s suit cuffs. Will squinted. Had he been making the expression of the embarrassment that burrowed it’s way deep into his bones, he might have wished for death in that instance. The sun offered him mercy. Roman Fell shifted, hands clasped tighter around the leather handle of his briefcase, with a seemingly everlasting amused smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Will Graham opted silence, for anything more and he would have only achieved further embarrassment. If the man required an apology, Mr. Graham would give it on the pretense of being polite; otherwise, he wished only to be alone to finish the study of Botticelli.

  The curator took kindly to stubbornness. A full smile upturned his thin lips glistening in the sunlight. Enjoyment seemed to stem from anywhere. Will’s cluelessness, awkwardness, stubbornness... Was he bound to fluster himself for all of eternity in front of the most prominent people? He supposed it was his curse. Everybody has a curse.

  “Let me know what insight you have to offer on our dear Botticelli,” said Roman. “I always do enjoy a rendezvous with the knowledgeable of art, and a critique of such.”

  Will Graham exhaled smoke. It smelled ghastly, he would willingly admit. Even he, a smoker himself, cringed at the distinct smell of cigarettes and avidly let fellow smokers know of his disgust, only to turn around and continue on with the exact same horrible habit. Will often asked why he hadn’t gotten into weed - what awful part of himself decided tobacco would be a wonderful idea. Marijuana at least created a pleasant euphoria. There is nothing pleasant about cigarettes.

  Finally, after a moments breath of tarnished air, the young man nodded rather unsurely. “Would I just be there to tell you how brilliant you are so you can blush like you’ve never heard that one before?” He brushed mowed blades of grass from his denim-clad knee. “I don’t mean to offend you, Mr. Fell, but I’d rather finish the assignment so I can take a deserved nap.”

  “Seven o’clock, the Osteria Personale.”

  “I don’t find you that interesting.”

  He smiled. Nothing could offend him. Not blatant rudeness, not refusals, not cigarette smoke puffed in his face. “You will,” He assured, and continued across campus to his guest lecture that same afternoon.

 

 

Note: book quotations come directly from _Sandro_ _Botticelli_ by Julia Cartwright, written in 1903. I, in no way, own the text. I do not own the characters described in this work; all credit goes to Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and the general NBC company. The characters are based on NBC’s Hannibal (2013-2015) but the storyline is entirely my own. I obviously do not affiliate with Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, or any other faceclaim that may appear in this adaption. Just to be clear: does a novelist like Sarah J. Mass believe in fae, torture, and magic? Probably not. Nor do I condone murder, cannibalism, or any other violence. Let’s remember this is fictional writing.

   


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Graham and Roman Fell meet for a conversation about Botticelli over a glass or three of wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest apologies for such a late update on this fic. I have been horribly busy since January. Between university, moving, and painting I have been stretched thin. However, now that things are calming down, I plan to update this regularly. If I can keep up on that promise will be... surprising, to say the least. I love the idea that I have and this truly is my favorite thing I have written/will write, so I want to continue it as far as I can. All of my readers have my best wishes.

  “Sorry, I’m late.”

  He was not truly apologetic. An alarm was set for a half hour before the given time, but snooze followed the persistent buzzing; that is, Will slammed the clock on the bedside table with the hope that it would break. Something clicked against the floor and the ringing ceased. He slept longer, perhaps more than intended, and it was an hour later by the time Will Graham reached the Osteria Personale in the same grass-scuffed overalls, white tee, and old loafers. The mistake of attire was entirely evident in a brief walk to the back of the restaurant as he slid between tables that seated upper-class middle-aged men and women with their small dishes that cost more than a month's worth of food for a money-cautious student such as himself. It pained him to think in the forefront of his mind that his wallet housed nothing more than a crumpled American twenty dollar bill.

  Will felt less guilty when he had approached Roman Fell still in his men’s magazine suit. The pinstripe suited him well, as did the deep red to compliment his eyes. Eyes that he stared into a moment too long before speaking a sheepish hello that could never qualify as a decent greeting. “Sorry,” which he didn’t mean quite whole-heartedly, and “I’m late,” which couldn’t suffice for just how late he was. Now, looking at the author who was looking at him, too, guilt bubbled in his throat. He swallowed it with a glance to Fell’s folded hands upon the table. He had been writing.

  “It’s quite alright. I kept myself occupied.”

  “Is that your next novel?”

  The leather-bound journal slid from the table to the seat. He did not tuck it into the neat safety of his trusted briefcase, but let it stay beside his thigh.

  He smiled, if only because it was polite.

  “It is a lecture I am preparing.”

  Will could almost feel the irksome irritation plucking at Roman Fell’s skin. Lateness was rude. Terribly so, a half-hour past a given time. “I fell asleep,” said Will. “In my dorm. I finished my paper and… Well, felt a nap was needed if I wanted to do anything at all.”

  “You need not have come if you were so tired.”

  “I felt like I needed to.”

  “Not at all,” Fell replied. That same half-smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as if he only displayed it because he must. “If you wish to gather more rest, I urge you to do so. I imagine the remainder of your week is budgeted with classes.”

  “If I’m to be honest–”

  “I do prefer it.”

  A small laugh, a bag dropping from his shoulder as if to say the final answer on where he wanted to be. “I would never forgive myself if I let go of an opportunity to speak to you properly – without being a total ass, anyway.”

  The only nearby person unfazed by the crude word was Roman Fell, who only seemed to be indifferent by the kind compliment. Not blushing, Will noted with some guilt and disappointment.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Graham? I gather it is not Florence. The southern states, I should assume, given your accent.”

  Will did smile, then, with pride. “Louisiana, nearer the French side. My father was fluent, my mother a little less, myself even less than her. I was never good with languages.”

  “What of Italian?”

  “Only a year’s worth of knowledge stored up here.” He tapped his temple with the knuckle of his forefinger. “I was accepted to Florence in my junior year, worked on the language since then. Enough to get by, anyway. I figured I had to know how to flirt if I wanted a free coffee from time to time.”

  His smile was amused. “I’m sure you have no trouble with that.”

  Will did not want to know if his cheeks colored as profusely as they burned. He never blushed, not even in bed. A cough stifled the embarrassment; just a low rumble in his throat, enough to seem parched. Roman politely caught the attention of a passing waiter and asked for iced water and a bottle of Sauvignon wine, to which the waiter issued off with the promise to retrieve. Suddenly, Will was angry with himself for trying to cover up a harmless reaction - It was another however many euros on his side of the bill. He was not even completely sure if he liked Sauvignon wine. Beer, of course, and scotch and whiskey and everything his father once drank, which did not include Sauvignon wine on any festive occasion.

  “You said you completed your paper. Would you appreciate a second opinion?”

  Roman nodded to the satchel beside William, which was identical to the one that had been sprawled out in the grass during their previous encounter. Roman had made a note of its age and peeling exterior.

  Will’s eyes widened, if just slightly. He stuttered for a moments breath before asking: “You want to read it?”

  A nod. “If you don’t mind. As I said before, I always enjoy hearing the opinions of others also interested in art and artists.”

  The papers were stapled. It was just a written draft. Sloppy handwriting, some rushed words that were incorrectly spelled. It was not _finished_ , just the draft. Finished would imply it was typed and placed in a binder or a folder with no pencil smudges or spilled wine.

  His hands trembled as he retrieved it. Every bit of him wanted to keep the writing away from Roman Fell’s eyes. Will Graham had no desire for judgement. That would pass as his professor examined it and corrected whatever needed to be corrected. The situation was entirely different when the source read the writing of a meager college student who thought too quickly for his hand to write. No matter his thoughts, he slid it across the table.

  And waited as it was read. Sipped wine so costly he could not afford, breathed unevenly, ran his hand through his rain-matted curls as he waited. Waited, waited, and waited. His bottom lip was swollen from constant worrying and biting teeth. He filled his glass. Roman hadn’t touched his.

  Finally, the man let the paper rest on the tabletop.

  “How long did you spend writing it?”

  “A couple of days,” Will mumbled. “I had the sentences formulated in my mind while I took notes and read. You caught me writing it.”

  “You had no prior knowledge of Botticelli’s history before writing this paper?”

  “No.” He swallowed. It wasn’t wine but spit. “I mean, not really. A bit here and there about his past, but nothing substantial enough to write a whole paper on him.”

  Roman placed the same journal from his arrival on the table. “Read it,” he said. It was a simple command. “The latest page and just that.”

  Will did. He felt terribly stupid as he fidgeted to grab the book. It would be hours later when he realized the honor that was asked of him.

  While he read, an entree of the author’s choice was ordered. Other than that brief minute, Roman did not allow his eye to stray from the shifting gaze of the student as he read the page over twice.

  “ _The_ _Birth_ _of_ _Venus_ …” he murmured, allowing the image of Sofia writhing to simmer in his mind. He could place her face on the cut and pasted photo of the said painting. He shifted again. “Venus emerges from the depths. Born out of the water, from the earth, as a grown woman.”

  “You can’t tell me that is all you see.”

  “What should I see?”

  Roman tsked. Was this a game? “Your synopsis on his most pinnacle artwork impressed me most. I - anyone - could gather that much from looking at the painting for a moment or two.”

  His eyes flickered back to the page.

  _Botticelli_ _is_ _characteristic_ , _almost_ _predictable_ _in_ _his_ _portrayal_.  _Venus_ ’ _plush_ _body_ , _pale_ _skin_. _The_ _pose_ _of_ _covering_ _herself_. _Venus_ _is_ _not_ _afraid_ _of_ _her_ _own_ _skin_.

  “Why do you assume Venus is not afraid to show her body?”

  “Why would the goddess of beauty try to hide?” Roman retorted. “She, of all, would know the human form can be a gloriously divine vessel.” Roman’s back pressed against the iron chairs. The legs were rusted with age but kept their aesthetic. “Why would anyone hide?”

  “Voyeurism is not a pleasing subject to all.”

  “It isn’t voyeurism. Adam and Eve were created such as Venus. From the dirt of the earth, Eve from Adam’s rib. They did not notice their nakedness until they took a bite of that fateful apple and their eyes were opened. We are born naked of sins and clothes.”

  Will’s finger slid across the edge of the page. A thin cut sprouted the smallest line of blood, soaking into the harsh edge of the paper. The stain went unnoticed by the injured. Mesmerized by the subject, by the speaker. God, he was blushing for no reason at all.

  “We all hold a piece of Venus.”

  “Precisely, Mr. Graham.”

  “Will,” said he. “Call me Will.”

  “Roman.”

* * *

_The composition is similar in some respects to that of the_ Primavera. _Venus is slightly to the right of center and isolated against the background so no other figures overlap her.  She has a slight tilt of the head and leans in an awkward stance._ "No," Will mumbled, "there's a word for that." The graphite sheen upon the side of his hand smudged against the paper as he whisked the shreds of eraser from the corner of the page. "Con... Contra - Ah, contrapposto."  _She has a slight tilt of the head and leans in an awkward contrapposto-like stance that is common amongst Italian artists, such as Michelangelo's_ David _and_ Laocoön and His Sons. A pause to sip a lukewarm caffè corretto. _Of obvious importance in this painting is the nudity of Venus.  The depiction of nude women was not a subject painted in the Middle Ages, with a few exceptions in specific circumstances.  For the subject of this figure, Botticelli turned to an Aphrodite statue for inspiration, such as the_ Aphrodite of Knidos _, in which the goddess attempts to cover herself in a gesture of modesty._

  The tip of his pencil sat atop the page. _In a gesture of modesty_. Was Homer wrong to consider Venus as a modest woman of unchallenged beauty, hence enabling Botticelli to be incorrect in his depiction of Venus' birth from the sea? Rather, was Roman Fell, a supposed historian of Botticelli's work, therefore knowledgeable of Homer, wrong? A consideration of if there is any right or wrong must be acknowledged. Roman Fell might have only been verbalizing his beliefs on nudity and modesty and forgotten to take Venus' stance as evidence of her modesty or lack of it. Will decided he should take the argument to the one who confused him and is more educated on the mind of Botticelli. Fell communicated the mood of _Mars and Venus_ so well that to think he could be viewing _The_ _Birth of Venus_ , and Venus herself, backwards was one that was as ludicrous as it was ambitious.

   "Entirely incomparable..." he mumbled, "What would personal opinion have to do with the historical context?" Roman Fell's voice seemed to pipe into his ear with a counter-thought. _What is one to do with blanks in history, but to research opinions and formulate our own, thus creating historical fact? Is not history built off of opinion? One man thought we ought to go to war, a majority believed we should not. However, he who has power owns the world. One opinion rules over another._ Will shushed the idea with a tug to his earlobe. History is not all opinions; not just old men who haven't anything other to do than send young men off to fight their petty battles to satisfy their game of 'who has the bigger dick.'

  Another gulp of caffè corretto eased the tickle of agitation making him restless. His hands were cramping and he knew he mustn't continue writing such a paramount piece of work when his mind was muddled with contradictions and fleeting thoughts of everything but Botticelli. Perhaps, he decided, it would be best to take a stroll and return to the task when he felt prepared. Coffee with a shot of brandy was not going to solve the great question: what does Homer think that made Botticelli paint, and what did he want Venus to convey to make us think? Lastly: what are we supposed to think?

  Will shook his head. It was simply too early to decipher anything more than if his coffee needed a tad more brandy, and it did.

  Sofia danced in the back of his mind. His fingertips caressed down the page of his journal with a recollection of her soft middle in his palms. Is this what sculptors and painters felt while creating images of their subject? He thought of her when all other thoughts were too vexing. A sense of calm, he admitted, to think of the way they molded together like sand with the sea. Her presence was a phantom now. To see her again would be an oddity and nothing else. No... a relief. She took the worry of Botticelli between her index and thumb and flicked it away. He would find it hours later, but not her. She would be somewhere in Florence.

  Will sighed between his fingers.

  Roman Fell would never leave his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own the characters described in this work; all credit goes to Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and the general NBC company. The characters are based on NBC’s Hannibal (2013-2015) but the storyline is entirely my own. I obviously do not affiliate with Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, or any other faceclaim* that may appear in this adaption. Just to be clear: I do not condone murder, cannibalism, or any other violence. Let’s remember this is fictional writing.  
> *Sofia/"Venus"/Will's-Hookup-In-The-Beginning-Of-The-Fic is an original character created by my own brain.


	3. Update (not a chapter, but equally important)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will be deleted upon completion of next chapter.

Hello, my lovely readers.

It has been a long while since I last visited ao3. My life has been a busy rollercoaster since April. I moved, I got a new job, I attend college, and I plan to move again - this time on my own. Very little time was set aside for this fic, and even less time thinking about where it will head to next. I haven't a plan (a horrible idea on my part, I acknowledge that). I have begun writing the next chapter. I need some down-time. Between school, studying, working, and visiting apartments I am stretched thin. I have missed ao3 dearly. I missed this fic in particular. I had such a wonderful idea that I wanted to stick to and so many chapters to come at the time, but things changed and I had to decide which would take responsibility (although we all know what the obvious choice would be). However, with a new schedule and just overall tiredness, I want to sit on my couch with my laptop and pour my thoughts into this fic. I hope I will not need to abandon it again. I would love to finish something for once.

That being said, expect a chapter soon. _Very_ soon. The ideas are swirling and my fingers are constantly itching to type away, so who am I to deny? Let me know which direction you think this fic should head in. Do you feel romance is appropriate? Do you want detailed sex scenes, or would it kill the vibe? If you have any concerns, please voice them! But please, refrain from critiquing my Italian. I know it is probably incorrect.

I am so excited to return to Botticelli & Caravaggio!

Your author,

Han.

P.S. This update will be deleted before I post a new chapter. No ugly interruptions.


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